I remember that when I visited Byblos, in the Jbeil district of Lebanon, in the summer of 2011, I felt like a true beholder of history. Historians agree that it’s the second oldest continuously-inhabited city on earth, runner-up only to the Palestinian city of Jericho. I sat at Feniqia restaurant in the heart of the […]
Turkish archaeologists have unearthed what Discovery News calls the ‘Byzantine iPad.” Dated to the 9th century A.D., the wooden tool was found among a shipyard of roughly 37 ancient ships in Istanbul. The original ‘iPad’ measures roughly seven inches, except it’s thicker and made of wood, and comprises five overlaid carved rectangular panels coated with wax, Discovery reports. “Yenikapı is a phenomenon with its 37 […]
Scientists have discovered the first dinosaur bones in Saudi Arabia that are identifiable – a huge discovery that has proved very difficult until now. The bones are said to be roughly 72 million years old.
Yalın Mimarlık won first place in an international design competition for an archaeological museum on the site of ancient Troy. Renowned for the famous Trojan horse story in Homer’s Iliad, this historic site in the northwestern corner of Turkey reveals a lot about the country’s artistic and cultural development leading up to World War I; the […]
Three thousand years ago four stone lions guarded a temple in Iraq, but their work was short lived. The Assyrians invaded the city Nuzi and annihilated everything in sight, including the lions and other artifacts. One lion that remained almost intact now lives at University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, while fragments of […]
Bulldozers in Beirut tore down remains of a 2,500 year old Phoenician port on Tuesday with blessings from the Culture Minister. Eventually, three new skyscrapers will be built in its place, further blighting a once-beautiful city. The former Culture Minister Salim Wardy thwarted efforts by Venus Construction to proceed with the demolition in Mina al-Hosn and activists […]
A list of women’s names written in cuneiform is the only remnant of this unidentified language, which was spoken 2,500 years ago. Found in the remains of an enormous palace that was destroyed by a fire around 700 BCE, the clay tablet pictured above holds the only remnants of a language previously unknown to modern […]
Archaeologists in Fujairah at working against the clock to save the UAE’s precious rock art. Without an historical record, our future would seem shallow. A future sans identity. A future that lacks the benefit of hindsight to inform important decisions. Because ancient relics – fossils, petroglyphs, and architecture – shed light on our origin, they […]
The Louvre exhibition demonstrates Saudi Arabia’s historical influence on the Middle East region; can they spread a clean energy agenda too? When we think of Saudi Arabia, we think of oil, robed men, Mecca, and more oil. Certainly there’s an abundant supply of it, though, like in Egypt, the country experienced power shortages this summer […]